Farting Blood and Photos of my Rectum

            The doctor pumped my colon full of air.  He did this to make it possible for him to look around inside.  My father died of colon cancer, so if the doctor can find and remove polyps before they become cancerous, it will improve my chances of not getting colon cancer myself.

            He did two biopsies, and after the nurse wheeled me into recovery, she warned me that there might be some bleeding.  She told me that I had to do a lot of farting to get rid of the air that had been pumped in.  She turned me on my left side and told me that the air wouldn't smell bad.  She didn't say I'd be farting blood.  They had insisted I wear a Depends adult diaper to prevent “soiling.”

It was my first experience with Depends.  I accidentally put my finger through the mesh.

            When the doctor came around to talk tome in recovery, I was still a little doped up from the procedure.  He showed me eight color photographs of the inside of my rectum.  He had already shown them to my husband.  I asked him if I could keep them, and told him I wanted to post them to Facebook.  He was a serious man and said I could borrow and scan them.  He didn't seem to understand why I was laughing.

“It only hurts when I laugh, Doc!” I said.

“Don’t laugh, then,” he replied.

            My mother in law suggested I include the rectal images with my Christmas cards. She understood the humor of the situation, thank goodness, and without any prompting.

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